Editing Sigrid Undset (section)

==Catholicism==
Both Undset's parents were [[atheists]] and, although, in accord with the norm of the day, she and her two younger sisters were baptised and with their mother regularly attended the local [[Lutheran]] church, the milieu in which they were raised was a thoroughly secular one.<ref name=catholicviking>{{cite web|url=https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/art/sigrid-undset-catholic-viking.html|title=Sigrid Undset: Catholic Viking|website=Catholic Education Resource Center|author=Stephen Sparrow|date=14 May 2003 |access-date=24 October 2023}}</ref> Undset spent much of her life as an agnostic, but marriage and the outbreak of the First World War were to change her attitudes. During those difficult years she experienced a crisis of faith, almost imperceptible at first, then increasingly strong. The crisis led her from clear agnostic [[Religious skepticism|skepticism]], by way of painful uneasiness about the ethical decline of the age, towards Christianity.<ref>{{cite book|author=Sigrun Slapgard|title=Dikterdronningen|page=352|language=no|publisher=Gyldendal|year=2007|location=Oslo|isbn=978-82-05-33289-8}}</ref>

In all her writing, one senses an observant eye for the mystery of life and for that which cannot be explained by reason or the human intellect. At the back of her sober, almost brutal realism, there is always an inkling of something unanswerable. At any rate, this crisis radically changed her views and ideology. Whereas she had once believed that man created God, she eventually came to believe that God created man.

Beginning around 1917, Undset developed a passionate interest in the writings of Monsignor [[Robert Hugh Benson]], many of whose writings she would later translate into Norwegian.<ref> Geir Hasnes, ''Sigrid Undset and the Saints'', "The Northern Muse: Celebrating Sigrid Undset", November/December 2021, [[St Austin Review]], pages 4-7.</ref>

However, she did not turn to the [[Established church|established]] Lutheran [[Church of Norway]], where she had been nominally reared. This is because, according to Geir Hasnes, Undset had always considered the Lutheran Church "anemic" and "detested the fact that every minister seemed to preach his personal version of [[Lutheranism]]."<ref> Geir Hasnes, ''Sigrid Undset and the Saints'', "The Northern Muse: Celebrating Sigrid Undset", November/December 2021, [[St Austin Review]], pages 4-7.</ref>

She was received into the [[Catholic Church in Norway|Catholic Church]] in November 1924, after thorough instruction from the Catholic priest in her local parish. She was 42 years old.<ref name=Gyldendal /> She subsequently became a [[Third Order of Saint Dominic|lay Dominican]].

It is noteworthy that ''[[The Master of Hestviken]]'', written immediately after Undset's conversion, takes place in a historical period when Norway was Catholic, that it has very religious themes of the main character's relations with God and his deep feeling of sin, and that the Medieval Catholic Church is presented in a favorable light, with virtually all clergy and monks in the series being positive characters.

In Norway, Undset's [[religious conversion|conversion]] to Catholicism was not only considered sensational; it was scandalous. It was also noted abroad, where her name was becoming known through the international success of ''Kristin Lavransdatter''. At the time, there were very few practicing Catholics in Norway, which was an almost exclusively Lutheran country. [[Anti-Catholicism]] was widespread not only among the Lutheran clergy, but through large sections of the population.<ref name=oftestad>{{cite book|title=Norway and the Jesuit Order: A History of Anti-Catholicism|first=Bernt T. |last=Oftestad |pages=209–222 |year=2013|publisher=Brill Rodopi |ISBN=9789401209632}}</ref> Likewise, there was just as much anti-Catholic scorn among the Norwegian [[intelligentsia]],{{citation needed|date=June 2012}} many of whom were adherents of socialism and [[Communist Party of Norway|communism]].{{citation needed|date=June 2012}} The attacks against her faith and character were quite vicious at times, with the result that Undset's literary gifts were aroused in response. 

For many years, she participated in the public debate, going out of her way to introduce the ongoing [[Catholic literary revival]] into [[Norwegian literature]]. In response, she was swiftly dubbed "The Mistress of Bjerkebæk" and "The Catholic Lady".<ref name=litteratursiden />

Undset's essays about [[Elizabethan era]] English Catholic martyrs [[Margaret Clitherow]] and [[Robert Southwell (Jesuit)|Robert Southwell]] were collected and published in ''Stages on the Road''. Furthermore, Undset's ''Saga of Saints'' told the whole of [[Norwegian history]] through the lives of Norwegian Saints and Venerables.

In May 1928, Undset travelled to England and visited [[G. K. Chesterton]] and [[Hilaire Belloc]], both of whose writings she would soon translate into Norwegian. According to legend, Undset once walked into the office of the manager of the monolithic Aschehoug publishing company. Undset then threw a copy of Chesterton's ''[[The Everlasting Man]]'' on the manager's desk and exclaimed, "This is the best book ever written! It has to be translated into Norwegian!" Whether or not the story is merely apocryphal, Undset's own translation of ''The Everlasting Man'' was published in 1931.<ref> Geir Hasnes, ''Sigrid Undset and the Saints'', "The Northern Muse: Celebrating Sigrid Undset", November/December 2021, [[St Austin Review]], pages 4-7.</ref>